Bad Poker Hand
In five card draw, one can dump 3 cards an PICK 3 more. That's what Joe & Boaz offers today... 3 PICKs. Let's look:19. One who's bound to get away?: ESCAPE ARTIST. Houdini made his great escapes by hiding lockpicks on his person.
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| Eldest's first pick set & practice lock. |
30. Fiddler accompanist in bluegrass, often: BANJO PLAYER.
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| Take your... //sry too soon :-) |
43. Artist who makes some pretty cool pieces?: ICE SCULPTOR.
A chain saw being used as an ICE pick.
50. "Go ahead and choose one," and what one might say to a 19-, 30-, or 43-Across?: TAKE YOUR PICK.
And there you have it - 3 types of picks.
Across:
1. Basic lesson: ABCS.
5. Smack-__: DAB. In the middle...
8. PC shortcut employed when creating a draft: CTRL-S. Shortcut for saving a file.
13. Noted host of a couples' getaway?: NOAH. Fav!
14. Vegetarian staple: TOFU.
15. Figure skater Sonja: HENIE. No clue - ESP.
16. Yarn: TALE.
17. Middle East sultanate: OMAN.
18. Magazine piece?: ISSUE.
19. [See: Theme]
22. Centers of interest: FOCI.
23. Formally withdraw: SECEDE.
27. Small pellets: BBS.
30. [See: Theme]
33. Indie genre with mainstream appeal: ALT-POP. Meh. Ok
35. "__ guesses?": ANY.
36. Cook fast, as steak: SEAR.
37. Guarded: LEERY.
38. French pal: AMI.
39. Bass kin: CELLO. Hand-up if you were thinking fish.
40. Button on a scale: TARE.
41. Seasonal vaccine target: FLU. I should have gotten the summer one. I'm still under the weather.
42. More like a snoop: NOSIER.
43. [See: Theme]
46. Many "Grey's Anatomy" pros: DRS. A TV show with Drs making out or something.
47. Singled out: CHOSEN.
48. Some Minecraft blocks: ORES.
50. [See: Theme]
56. Deserted rest area?: OASIS.
Across:
1. Basic lesson: ABCS.
5. Smack-__: DAB. In the middle...
8. PC shortcut employed when creating a draft: CTRL-S. Shortcut for saving a file.
13. Noted host of a couples' getaway?: NOAH. Fav!
14. Vegetarian staple: TOFU.
15. Figure skater Sonja: HENIE. No clue - ESP.
16. Yarn: TALE.
17. Middle East sultanate: OMAN.
18. Magazine piece?: ISSUE.
19. [See: Theme]
22. Centers of interest: FOCI.
23. Formally withdraw: SECEDE.
27. Small pellets: BBS.
30. [See: Theme]
33. Indie genre with mainstream appeal: ALT-POP. Meh. Ok
35. "__ guesses?": ANY.
36. Cook fast, as steak: SEAR.
37. Guarded: LEERY.
38. French pal: AMI.
39. Bass kin: CELLO. Hand-up if you were thinking fish.
40. Button on a scale: TARE.
41. Seasonal vaccine target: FLU. I should have gotten the summer one. I'm still under the weather.
42. More like a snoop: NOSIER.
43. [See: Theme]
46. Many "Grey's Anatomy" pros: DRS. A TV show with Drs making out or something.
47. Singled out: CHOSEN.
48. Some Minecraft blocks: ORES.
50. [See: Theme]
56. Deserted rest area?: OASIS.
A different "Alt-Pop" Oasis
59. Some tennis shots: LOBS.
60. Pod in Creole cuisine: OKRA. Fry it up! [See: Jolly below]
61. Top-level performance: A-GAME.
62. [Chef's kiss]: MWAH.
63. Bridle part: REIN.
64. Kits, eventually: FOXES.
Two guys on the hunt for Foxes
65. Played out: OLD.
66. Two-time Newbery Medal winner DiCamillo: KATE. ESP but CSO to DW.
Down:
1. Request from a 25-Down: ANTE. To PICK some cards.
2. Feathery accessories: BOAS.
3. AP math class: CALC. Was that AP? I thought it was just Jr. yr. math.
4. Grain amount: SHEAF.
5. Taxonomic classification broader than kingdom: DOMAIN.
6. Out there: AFAR.
7. Part of a suicide squeeze: BUNT.
8. Woodshop tool: CHISEL. Another kinda PICK.
9. Precedent-setting trials: TEST CASES.
10. Many ICU professionals: RNS. They were in Grey's Anatomy too, right?
11. Simu who plays Shang-Chi: LIU. ESP.
12. "What did I tell you?": SEE.
14. Work boot tip: TOE CAP.
20. NOLA sandwich: PO'BOY.
If you've not seen the Jolly boys, you've missed out.
21. Spotting game: ISPY. With my little 24d.
24. Lashes site: EYE LID.
25. Poker figure: DEALER.
26. Box score statistic: ERRORS.
27. Like Latvia and Lithuania: BALTIC.
28. Sodium hypochlorite: BLEACH.
29. Upgrade from mono: STEREO.
31. Clog: JAM UP.
32. Covert maritime org.: ONI. Someone's gotta explain 'cuz I don't have time to look it up - too close to 34d.
34. Deadline set by a printer: PRESS TIME.
38. Start and end of the Musketeers' motto: ALL.
39. Apple device?: CORER. Ha! cute.
41. Doldrums: FUNK.
42. "I can wait": NO RUSH. Do I insert RUSH here or follow the instructions of NO?
44. Puts an end to: CEASES.
45. "That's rough": TOO BAD. So sad.
49. Multipurpose utensil: SPORK.
51. Red Muppet with a goldfish: ELMO.
52. Pained cry: YOWL.
53. Big-box store with a Smaland play area: IKEA.
54. Lit __: CRIT. DW knows all about this.
55. "Citizen __": KANE. #Spoiler - Rosebud.
56. Clumsy fellow: OAF.
57. Before now: AGO.
58. Jazz horn: SAX.
The Grid:
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| The Grid |
"You can PICK your friends, & you can PICK your nose, but you can't PICK your friend's nose." -Abe Lincoln (probably).
Cheers, -T
42 comments:
ONI is apparently Office of Naval Intelligence. I've always seen it clued as a Japanese demon/ogre.
I don’t recall using
“Ctrl S” before, although at some point I probably did. Other than that, I didn’t have too much trouble with this puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
The Wite-Out got a rest today, though I was thinking PUNT before DAB made it BUNT. I thought the puzzle was good, the theme so-so. Thanx Joe, Boaz, and Dash-T.
CALC: Unknown in my high school. We had algebra, geometry, advanced algebra, and trigonometry. No CALC until freshman college.
HENIE: Old timey. She was a Norwegian Olympic skating champion in the '30s. Her fame bought her a movie contract, and she appeared in several movies -- even starred in a few.
Took 6:10 today for me to set a basketball screen.
I didn't know today's writer (Kate), but knew the actor (or actress?) (Limu) from prior puzzles.
Puzzle was ok.
FIR, but ice sculpter_>ICE SCULPTOR (UNTIE!)
My guess is that ctrl+s was standardized before mice became widespread. Now we just click on the little floppy icon.
Click and Clack used the expression "Sonja Henie's Tutu" as an exclamation. That's the (only) reason I knew it.
A four-letter big box store is probably IKEA, regardless of the blah, blah, blah.
Thanks to Joe and Boaz for the fun Thursday exercise, except that I think MWAH reads to me more like what Snidely Whiplash would say than a chef's kiss. And thanks to Bayou Tony for another fine review. (In my little elhi, some students took Algebra I in the 8th grade, Algebra II as freshmen, geometry as sophs, trig as jrs, and calc as srs.)
FIR. There was some really odd cluing today, with answers like ONI, mwah, and ctrl-s for example.
I didn't have too much trouble with the long answers, but when I got to the reveal, I really scratched my head. Even after coming here and reading the explanation, I'm still somewhat bewildered.
Overall this puzzle was so-so.
Good Morning:
The theme and reveal were fine, although two of the picks were tangibles but the Escape Pick is a method rather than an actual pick, based on what I read, post-solve. Kate was unknown but the rest of the fill was straightforward and pretty basic for a Thursday.
Thanks, Joe and Boaz, and thanks, Anon T, for blogging while under the weather. That Noah’s ark comic always makes me chuckle.
Have a great day.
Thank you, Joe Marquez and Boaz Moser : That was fun.
And thank you, Dash T. I laughed when I read, "A TV show with Drs making out or something." It seems that you had about as much interest that show as I did.
CSO to my DW too, sans the i.
OASIS - I like their sound. I'll add Oasis - Champagne Supernova to your Wonderwall selection. My mondegreen in that song? "Some day you will find me carpeting the landslide" They are "ALT-POP", and in their case, specifically BRITPOP. It's too bad the two brothers can't get along anymore.
OKRA - There were Black Eyed Pea restaurants scattered around Houston when I lived there. I didn't need a menu. Large chicken fried steak with cream gravy, black eyed peas, fried OKRA, and a large iced tea, unsweetened. So good! I see now that they are all gone, except for a few locations in Colorado. That was a chain that should have gone national.
So I was still thinking about that chicken fried steak and fried okra when I got to your Jolly boys tasting New Orleans, and now I want a po boy and boudin sausage, with a side of red beans and rice! Funny watching them try the different foods, and their reaction at seeing and trying the muffaletta. I like those too, but my wife doesn't like the tapenade.
Now I'm hungry; I gotta go make breakfast.
See all y'all later n'at!
I thought this was a fun puzzle, but not a Thursday puzzle. More of a Wednesday puzzle as Wednesday’s was a typical Thursday p.
ESCAPE ARTIST and NOLA in the same puzzle right after 10 prisoners escaped from the NOLA Parish prison. Five are still loose. They didn't have to PICK any lock. Just threaten a janitor, who turned off the water to their cell. They tore the toilet from the wall and managed to break the Iron bars on the outside before 1:00am. The incompetent staff didn't notice they were gone until after 7:00.
Good morning. It was a very easy puzzle to FIR today. I have no "bone to PICK" with the constructors. Very few proper names and no text-speak abbrs. I never noticed ALT-POP as it was already filled by perps. I'm glad because it was unknown to me. Didn't know KATE either.
CTRL-S should have never been necessary on Word or Excel. Many people lost a lot and had to redo their work because they didn't hit 'Save" continuously. Google Documents always saved everything automatically. Common sense.
I agree that Escape Pick doesn't really work, unless we're talking about an old Steve McQueen flick! Should be a Lock Pick or something.
Easiest this week according to MWAH. All theme answers need a PICK (except the CELLO)
Is it “yarn” or “yam”? (Let me take a closer look) it’s “yarn” I yam right.
Inkovers: yeow/YOWL,
BLEACH, finally a cure for the FLU 😷 . Great NOAH clue and classic toon. ALTPOP? ✋ for 🐟 “bass kin”
ESCAPE ARTIST:
About a month ago I was about to perform a fluoroscopic exam on a prisoner. His ankles were shackled which is common but he was also handcuffed. The metal cuffs were in the way of the procedure. I asked his guards if they could remove the handcuffs for the study. When the prisoner heard me ask he just simply slipped the cuffs off his wrists. The guards just shrugged and I completed the exam uneventfully.
Nola OKRA, POBOY (not a muffalleta sangwidge)
KITS recently referred to our old CW friend IKEA, but an OAF helped me perp that. (Bette Davis nominated for best actress in 1941 film “The Little FOXES”) 🦊 🦊🦊
Desserted rest area : “Bask kin” Robbins?🍨 😊
A sunless week of rain. May need an IKEA NOAH’s ark kit soon 😲
I took Basic lessons in college, learning to program on teletype machines that had paper-tape printouts. When the first computers arrived in the lab with CRT monitors, there was a line waiting to use them.
For the Noted host of a couples getaway, I wanted TATU (Tattoo?) "Da plane! Da plane!"
Lotsa fun stuff in your write-up, T. You're probably right, Lincoln had a big nose, judging by Mt. Rushmore. LOL
At one point or another, I've used every pick in your pick pic. My current pick is the yellow one.
CALC - We had the same at my high school, D-O. CALC was not available. I don't recall any AP classes either.
Enjoyable challenge today from Joe and Marquez, with a theme cleverly featuring several kinds of picks.
Nice to see Sonja Henie, who was not just one of many champion figure skaters. The history of figure skating--women's and men's--could be divided into two chapters: Pre-Henie and Post-Henie. Through her talent and charisma on and off the ice, she played a pivotal role in transforming the sport.
I vote to put MWAH in the dust bin.
Thanks, Boaz and Joe, for a fun Thirsday-appropriate cchallenge. And Anon-T, your recap was right on target.
Musings
-A fun theme and some clever cluing
-One M*A*S*H episode featured everyone watching a Sonya HENIE movie
-Western Nebraska, Northern California and Eastern Washington have entertained SECEDING from their states
-The TARE adjustment on my mechanical triple beam balances was a knob the kids adjusted under the pan
-The SPORK we get at graduation parties tend to break pretty easily
-Auto backup has saved me when I have forgotten to CTRL + S
-Me too, D-O, high school kids today take CALC I never saw until my sophomore year in college
-If you’re old enough, you remember Dinah Shore made MWAH her signature sign off.
-53F and breezy but we have a tee time at noon
In Catholic 5th grade we had elementary Algebra like 5-x=3. Solve for x.
In public HS (Big-E this was @ C.E.Byrd), I had AP English & History combined (the women that taught us were college profs too).
Science at Byrd was AP Chem & Physics. You can image what we made explode.
And math was basic Calc (just derivatives).
I blew through Calc-I in college (same as math in HS) but Calc II was integrals - that got hard fast. //see what I did there - put motion over time #Newton! :-)
C, -T
I like your play PICK, SS. -T
Fast and fun for a Thursday with all the different PICKs. I don't think anyone knows who originally said -T's last quote - I would have misattributed it to Mark Twain because he is given credit for all sorts of things he didn't say.
-I think MWAH has been more popular in the last 10 years sort of as onomontopeia for the chef's kiss
-Snidely Whiplash's sneer would be "Bwahahaha" - wonder if it has ever been in a crossword
-So many different regional names for the same type sandwichs: PO BOY, Hoagie, Sub, Hero, Cuban, Banh Mi, Torpedo with different types of filling
- I love KATE DiCamillo kid lit books, epecially "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "The Tale of Despereaux". She has won 3 Newberry awards IIRC
Thanks Tony for filling in and Joe & Boaz for the puzzle
We had Calc, Honors English, Chem II, and Physics II which prepared you to take the AP tests, but they weren't called AP Classes
How I miss Click and Clack.
Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Joe and Boaz, and AnonT.
I FIRed in very good time and saw the TAKE YOUR PICK theme. (Great catch on the Easter Egg, CHISEL, AnonT.)
I wondered briefly about a TAKE YOUR time sub-theme with PRESS TIME and NO RUSH.
Unknown or forgotten names filled with a perp or two (HENIE, KATE). ONI was unknown to this Canadian (but apparently to many of you Americans also).
Favourites today were the clues for NOAH and OASIS.
I hope you all know Canadian actor Simu LIU by now.
Wishing you all a great day.
Another FIR. Just two unknowns, KATE and LIU, both easy to guess. I got the theme fairly early. That was cool.
My great grand nephew is obsessed with Minecraft. He likes to show me what all he does with it and I’m totally lost. So I knew ORE.
Á -t. Did Abe Lincoln actually say this? We like to think of the great ones as “pure”. In this wonderful book titled Mozart’s Starling I learned that Mozart’s like scatological jokes.
Thanks Á -t for the nice review and the cool videos.
That should be liked.
And no ‘s. Good grief.
Hola! Is it really Thursday? This seemed more like Monday or Tuesday but great fun with TAKE YOUR PICK theme. Thanks, Tony, for clearly PICKING UP on that.
NOAH had the best cluing today! FOXES came in second, IMO. Clever clue for ALL, as well. Nicely done, Joe Marquez and Boaz Moser.
The first time I heard of SPORK was in a long ago episode of ROSEANNE.
And Sonia HENIE was once frequent fill in puzzles. That is why I knew of her.
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Is he a relative of Limu Emu?
I'll just Echo KS on this one.
Shouldn't be surprised that ONI was unknown to many. After all, the clue did say it was a "covert" (concealed, disguised or secret) organization.
Fun Tuesday-on-a-Thursday CW, which I very much liked. Only 5 names!! No DNKs among them. LOVE it! Seasonal vaccine target: ARM? FLU? Took one perp. I nominate: "Kits, eventually" as best clue today. Only W/O: LEARY/LEERY. DNK ONI, CTRLS or MWAH, needed perps. Even then, FIR in 12. Oh! Also DNK DOMAIN. The best teacher I had EVER was Mr. Mortenson, my HS bio teacher. I went to Greendale High. His memory jogger for classification system was King Peter Cooks Onions For Greendale Students (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). No "DOMAIN" in there. Seasonal vaccine target: ARM or FLU; needed one perp. Overall, a fun CW, thanx JM&BM. I even got the theme. Thanx too for the fun and informative write-up, Anon-T. All your time and effort is appreciated.
I liked this puzzle.
I used to enjoy Sonja Henie shows at the Chicago Stadium on my birthday. Lotta local Scandinavians followed her career.
Fun Thursday puzzle, many thanks, Joe and Boaz. And your commentary is always helpful, thanks for that too, AnonT.
Well, it looked like this puzzle had a TALE about a BANJO PLAYER who might have been dating an ICE SCULPTOR who might also have played a CELLO. Neither of them was an ESCAPE ARTIST , and so they got together slowly, with NO RUSH, enjoying playing A GAME, petting FOXES, eating OKRA, and doing other things while listening to music on a STEREO. Then they took a trip to an OASIS which was so lovely, that that's where they decided to get married. What a nice romance!
Have a lovely day, everybody.
Puzzling thoughts:
-Tony ==> thank you for the Jolly Boys video. They are a hoot. The only "bad" thing about the video is that now I am craving every one of the items they ate/tasted. And unfortunately, my ability to consume that quantity of food has long since passed ... but dang, I could literally taste each and every one of those food dishes ...
Operator error. For as long as i can remember, Word and Excel have had autosave features.
Yup, "Bwahahaha" is closer to the esteemed Mr. Whiplash's utterances.
Add "grinder" to the hero-type sammies. I think they originated in New England, but I first encountered them in Virginia Beach decades before I moved here.
Jinx- NO, they did not. You had to go to menu and either click on "Save as" or "Save"
So it worked! It was perps for me on that one.
Upon further review, looks like Microsoft changed it to Autorecover. Don't know the difference, but the legacy (pre-Office 365 / Onedrive / Sharepoint) had autosave. Very handy on pre-XP systems when BSOD happened a lot.
Thanks to Joe and Boaz! FAV was the FOXES clue then -T added the SNL skit. So fun! Thanks for subbing today. That NOAH comic is one of my favorites and the British brothers were fun, too.
I was surprised to see ESCAPE ARTIST and the clue "Artist who makes some pretty cool pieces" together in this puzzle. It was a great clue though....
I loved reading y'all today. Want a story?
//Story:
Youngest just landed in Miami Beach from Madrid via Tampa(?).
All I could think of was The Beatles.
Kid & buddies got a room on the airline (or my Amex).
Anyway - hope everyone had another great day on this side of dirt.
BTW - I was thinking about Sweet at Foxes b/f the SNL Wild & Crazy Guys hit me.
Cheers!, -T
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